Tunisia: a social revolution (from Umanita Nuova 23rd January 2011)

17th December, a young unemployed who occasionally sells fruits, Mohamed Bouaziz, goes up in flames against the harassments that he suffers everyday from Tunisian police.

In few days the protest of the Tunisian working class spread like wildfire. Tunisia, a Maghrebi country considered “westernized” because of its economical relationship with UE, lays in the most deepest crisis of the last fifteen years, that is since the Islamic wind blew up from the near Algeria risked of developing a civil war also in Tunisia. Very high rate of young people unemployment (a quarter of the young people is unemployed although the high level of education), inflation of the food good over the roof.

Furthermore, the Mafia management and favoritism of the Tunisian economy, controlled by the clan of president Ben Ali. For many observers, the Tunisian riot is a kind of desperation’s son of a generation whose access to job has been denied and their only perspective is to emigrate in Europe and be exploited. The price rise and the death of Buaziz have been the spark of a perspective which has been explosive since many years. The price rise has the roots in the speculations brought forward from the finance system that in the name of miracle of the multiplication of the money subtracts the bread to the people. In the last years, we have seen several speculations on commodities, the raw material, which made an increase of the petrol, copper and steel costs and afterwards the food goods (also thanks to the clever politics of investment in “green petrol” derived from farming which subtracts space to the food farming). A similar situation happened two years ago in Egypt and in central African countries and led to protests with several hundreds of deaths. In front of the Tunisian working class rage wave the state did not hesitate to respond with violence: about 150 deaths in two weeks (officially 21) and 5 people committed suicide for protest, universities and schools closed for government decree. From the videos is possible to see that many were hit from the back. They shoot to kill! From official sources it is possible to know that two cops died too.